Resilient and Non-Resilient Labour Adjustments in Europe by using Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Sandra Martínez-Molina¹*, Paula Sabater², Jorge Garcés³

¹Miss, Polibienestar Research Institute (University of Valencia), SPAIN, sandra.martine-molina@uv.es

²Miss, Polibienestar Research Institute (University of Valencia), SPAIN, paula.sabater@uv.es

³ Prof. Dr., Polibienestar Research Institute (University of Valencia), SPAIN, jordi.garcesr@uv.es

*Corresponding author

 

Abstract

The economic crisis had an important impact not only on the economic field but also on European labour markets. One of the most highlighted characteristics of the crisis has been the different impact among countries. In this regard, some countries have shown a stronger ability to cope with economic shocks while others have struggled to deal with it. Given this fact, the concept of resilience applied to the labour market has gained importance as a theoretical framework to explain the recovery and adaptation of labour markets after the impact of the economic crisis.

Under the engineering approach of resilience, this article has sought to find out which combination of factors have permitted the European labour markets to be resilient in the short-term –from 2007 until 2010– by using crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA). The findings have shown two different combinations of factors leading to labour market resilience, explaining 67% of the resilient cases, and four combinations of factors leading to a non-resilient result, explaining 73% of the non-resilient countries.

As for the resilient strategies, the first solution has shown that those countries with a lower GDP drop than EU-28 average from 2008 to 2009 and lower unemployment sensitivity to the GDP drop than EU-28 average which increased the expenses on active labour market policies per unemployed and reduced the number of total hours worked were resilient. In particular this configuration included the cases of Poland and Austria. The second solution represented the cases of Germany and Luxembourg. These countries had a higher fall in GDP than the average of the EU-28 countries from 2008 to 2009 and increased the average number of hours of work between 2007 and 2010.

The findings related to both labour market resilience and non-labour market resilience have shown that the GDP fall and its influence in the labour field has been crucial in the short-term. As a matter of fact, resilient results have shown two strategies to be resilient depending on the severity of the economic and labour impact. In particular, those countries with a low impact of the crisis applied a strategy based on “flexicurity” by increasing active labour market policies and decreasing the total number of hours worked. This result also highlights the importance of labour adjustments based on working-times schemes together with the reinforcement of labour security.

Non-resilient results have highlighted that a small disturbance can lead to an intense shock in the employment field in some countries. Moreover, the results have shown that the successful strategies to recover highlighted in the literature have not worked in the short-term in those countries where there was a very intense disturbance, such as the cases of some Baltic countries.

Keywords: Resilience, labour market, economic crisis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)